At the confluence where the Tiaodeng River merges into the Yangtze in Dadukou District, Chongqing, lies a turtle-shaped island. It is said that during the Tang and Song dynasties, a temple dedicated to the Nanhai Guanyin once stood upon the island, drawing pilgrims from afar and giving the place its name: “Little Nanhai.” Perched atop a cliffside in Nanhai Village, the Nanhai Buddha Pavilion is surrounded by dense groves of bamboo and camphor trees, overlooking the Yangtze River and the distant Yunzhuan Mountains.

The origins of the pavilion are almost mystical. Several years ago, while building a simple shelter within his orchard, the landowner unexpectedly uncovered the ruins of a Ming-dynasty Maitreya Hall and, through this chance discovery, began a profound connection with Buddhism. Together with local heritage authorities, the ruins were carefully preserved. Over the following years, he searched across Yunnan to acquire an immense thousand-year-old crape myrtle trunk—over seven meters long and nearly three meters in both height and width. Four master craftsmen from Dongyang, Zhejiang, then spent eight months carving it into a reclining Maitreya Buddha, which was placed near the ruins in reverence to this unexpected Buddhist affinity. At first, the giant wooden Buddha was sheltered only by a temporary shed. Despite its simplicity, villagers and pilgrims soon began climbing the mountain to worship there. Yet Chongqing’s harsh climate gradually weathered the sculpture under constant sun and rain. Eventually, the owner decided to commission a permanent structure—not to build a grand temple, but simply a place that could protect the Buddha and bring peace of mind.

From the beginning, the intention was never to create an elevated religious monument. Instead, we hoped to make a place where the spirit could quietly settle—a space capable of holding both devotion and everyday life. The sacred atmosphere of worship and the looseness of a rural communal space are allowed to coexist here: villagers and pilgrims, resting and praying, chanting and conversation, viewing the landscape and reading quietly, all unfold within the same setting.

A fifty-year-old camphor tree standing at the cliff’s edge became the spatial anchor of the project. The building stretches parallel to the precipice and cantilevers gently eastward. Supported by a steel waffle-beam roof structure, the eaves lightly brush against the surrounding branches, creating a fully open ground plane beneath. Originally, the reclining Buddha faced the mountain path with its back against the cliff. In our redesign, the Buddha was rotated to face the Yangtze River and distant mountains instead. Partitions partially veil the figure while reorganizing the circulation within. Walls of varying heights guide movement through the space, but also become instruments through which one senses changes in light, wind, and landscape. Through the ritual of approaching the Buddha, we hoped visitors might become more aware of nature itself—and through the clarity embodied by the Buddha, rediscover a quiet reconciliation between inner consciousness and the surrounding mountains and rivers.

The pavilion was designed not only to protect the wooden Buddha, but also to embrace the weathering of wood over time—an essential part of the sculpture’s and the space’s unique character. Rather than employing conventional masonry, we constructed welded metal mesh frames into which cedar logs of varying lengths were loosely inserted, forming porous “walls.” The smaller logs and the large wooden Buddha change together with the seasons, almost as if growing alongside one another.

The building unfolds along an east-west axis, allowing sunlight to filter through the gaps between the logs and cast visible traces of time across the interior throughout the day. Because each wall faces a different direction, every surface weathers at its own pace. These walls simultaneously protect the Buddha and record the passing of time, allowing nature and temporality to gradually permeate the space in different ways. Through these shifting patterns of light and material aging, we sought to evoke an awareness of time and existence, while also leaving room for the building’s future transformation.

None of the logs attached to the mesh framework are fixed in place. The architecture therefore remains perpetually temporary and improvisational, inviting everyone to participate in its making. More than four thousand logs of varying lengths and diameters were prepared—enough to completely fill the mesh structure. Yet only around half have been installed as an initial condition; the remaining logs are stacked beside the plaza for pilgrims and visitors to freely place themselves over time. This act of adding and rearranging wood becomes more than a physical interaction. It shortens the distance between people, architecture, and Buddha, while reconnecting the body directly with nature. In a sense, this participation mirrors the gesture of placing oneself beneath the Buddha’s protection.

The design and construction of the Nanhai Buddha Pavilion became an exploration into change and indeterminacy: wood remains unfixed, walls continue to weather, light constantly drifts, and people themselves complete the architecture through participation. As written in the Diamond Sutra: “One should give rise to the mind without dwelling on anything.” It is precisely through this refusal of permanence that the space itself is able to “give rise to mind.” Light shifts, time flows, and the act of worship becomes equally an act of self-reflection. Perhaps the true meaning of this pavilion lies in becoming a gentle medium through which people may, amid impermanence, briefly encounter their own Buddha-nature.